Women leading the march back into the workforce

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The booming jobs market is drawing in workers as never before -
and it is women who are leading the charge.

The proportion of those aged 15 and over who have a job hit an
all-time high of 60.8 per cent last month, the Bureau of Statistics
said.

The behaviour of women is behind this trend. The ratio of women
workers to the total female adult population reached a record 53.6
per cent last month, compared with just 39.8 per cent when the
bureau started keeping monthly employment figures in 1978.

Sarah Walters, a precedents lawyer at the commercial law firm
Henry Davis York, returned to work late last year, when her
daughter, Ella, was six months old.

It was a decision made necessary by costs such as mortgage
payments, and made possible by an employer willing to let Ms
Walters, who describes herself as a separated parent, work three
days a week in the office and one day at home.

"Unless Henry Davis York had offered the flexible work
arrangements that they did I might have had to come back into the
office four days a week, which I wouldn't have wanted to do because
I wanted to be with Ella more than I was away from her," she
said.

On the days when Ms Walters is in the office, Ella is cared for
by her father and her maternal grandmother. From next week she will
also attend day care.

The financial responsibility many women take on is one reason
for the greater proportion in the workforce compared with a
generation ago, Ms Walters suggests.

"Maybe it's true to say that my financial commitments are
greater than they would have been if I was in this position 20
years ago and obviously they have to be met."

While female workforce participation has surged since the late
1970s, the ratio of men in jobs to the total population has slipped
from 75.1 per cent to 68.2 per cent in that period.

However, the proportion of men in work has picked up during the
recent jobs boom and is now well above the trough of 64.8 per cent
reached following the recession of the early 1990s.

An economist with CommSec, Craig James, said consistently strong
jobs growth tended to attract people on the fringes of the labour
market into work.

"The economy is running at a super strong pace, employers need
the workers and, whether its full-time or part-time positions,
there [are] plenty of jobs on offer."